Traditional methods for detecting the difference between an answering machine and a human answering a telephone line, like those described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,371,787 and 5,724,420, have become less effective with the introduction of certain new technologies, particularly “Privacy Directors” or similar call blocking devices or services, voicemail services, or similar services offered by local telephone companies. These privacy director services typically intercept calls to a telephone number usually on a selective basis (such as unknown numbers or numbers not on an allowed list) and prompt the caller to speak their name in order to be connected to the called party. With the methods of detecting answering machines such as those described in the above patents, calls answered by privacy directors will typically be falsely classified as an answering machine. Therefore, a contact will not be made with the called party, unless outbound calls from a call center that detect an answering machine are connected to live agents for the agent to deduce whether it is a privacy director service or an answering machine. However, sending answering machine calls to live agents greatly reduces agent productivity. Thus, there is an unsatisfied need for automated call systems to properly distinguish between call blocking services and answering machines.